


Planetfall

by ciaan



Category: CW RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Community: spn_j2_bigbang, M/M, Space Opera, Space Pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-26
Updated: 2010-07-26
Packaged: 2017-10-10 19:52:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/103651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ciaan/pseuds/ciaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the heir to a noble House, Jensen's duty is clear. He is soon to take his place in the government of his star-spanning Empire. But Jensen has no interest in politics: he would prefer a more solitary life as a scientific researcher. Then an accident leaves him stranded on an uninhabited planet with a pirate. The two must work together to survive and begin to learn more about each other. Having been exposed to a completely new way of looking at the world, what path will Jensen follow now?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Planetfall

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to coiledsoul and cathexys for the beta comments. All remaining lacks are my own.
> 
> Additional warnings: It is the authorial intent that all sex in this fic is consensual, but some readers may find some aspects of it dubious. Minor original characters die and there are references to past parental deaths and war. Some scenes may be reminiscent of agoraphobia and OCD.

The vista on his runabout's viewscreen was spectacular. Jensen tried to fix every instant of it firmly in his memory. Soon he would no longer be able to do things like this. He dreaded the rapidly approaching end to his freedom. After his twenty-fifth birth anniversary next session he would be required to take his place in the Lower Council alongside his brother and sister, passing recommendations to the Upper Council where his mothers held their House Seat.

What he wanted instead was to travel the galaxy studying stellar life spans. Politics bored him. How could debates over such subjects as integrating Catlosian primogeniture with Zeniru line marriage ever be a tenth as interesting as the solar flares he was observing now? Laws were passed and then repealed, and what was the point? Only natural laws lasted forever. And this grandeur, this wasn't subject to anything like the maneuvering and squabbling of the Council.

Jensen smiled as another vast arm of plasma arched out into space from the star in front of him. Here he was, with no one around to bother him, just him and the clean, beautiful forces of creation.

Suddenly the runabout's proximity alarm went off, the klaxon jarring through him as another ship slid into space almost on top of his own, shadowing the spectacle. Jensen held on to his seat as the distortion waves shook his ship about, his grav shield fuzzing out. The ship outside loomed unmarked, no registration broadcasting. He lunged for his controls, but the bow wave of distortion was still shorting out his navigation and communication, leaving him unable to slip away.

Then a hatch gaped open right in front of him and his runabout was sucked into the maw of the other ship.

Jensen froze in place as constant weight returned, his hair falling over his face, listening to the clanging outside his ship. This could not be happening. This was absolutely unthinkable. He was only two systems away from the star his House orbited, deep inside the most civilized reaches of space. No pirate would dare to come here. No pirate would dare to touch him.

But then... He had been interested in this star himself because it was uninhabited, ignored. He could have solitude here. Maybe someone else had the same thought.

A shower of sparks burst out of the control panel on the entry hatch. The shield was still down and the hull wouldn't hold forever. Jensen opened the hatch, not wanting his runabout to get too damaged.

There were three pirates in the docking bay outside. All were holding phase disruptors, and the one who had been shooting at the runabout's hatch quickly turned hers off. Jensen remained in his seat as they entered, staring at them impassively, not wanting to show any fear. One kept his disruptor aimed at Jensen as the other two made quick work of searching through the small cabin of the runabout, poking into every nook and corner.

"There's nothing here, Captain," one of them said after a moment.

"No, there is," the pirate standing in front of Jensen answered. "This ship is marked for House Akala, and look at him. He is no mere servant of the House." He thrust his disruptor into the holster at his waist and stepped in closer, gripping Jensen's jaw with a strong hand and clamping his mouth shut. The other hand brushed the hair back out of Jensen's face. His gloves were sleek, but where his fingers were near Jensen's nose Jensen could smell rot and harsh sharp chemicals, itching his nostrils and making his throat clench. Jensen was outraged. How dare this uncouth person touch him?

The pirate tugged, pulling Jensen's head higher until Jensen had to rise to his feet. He leaned in, his face getting very close to Jensen's. He turned Jensen's head to the side, examined his profile for a moment and then rotated him back. Jensen stared at him coolly in return.

The pirate was taller than him, dressed in tight, shiny-slick black pants and jacket, clothing identical to the other two. His hair was tied back in a tight ponytail except for the long bangs that escaped to fall over his brown-green eyes and arched eyebrows. His face had a scattering of pox craters across the forehead and left cheek, some of the teeth in his cruel smirk were crooked, and his skin was unevenly colored. Not only were there a few small black lumps on his face, but all his skin varied, paler around the eyes, darker brown and reddened on the cheeks and across the concave bridge of his small nose. Jensen suddenly realized that the color differences were probably a phenomenon of actual sun exposure that he had heard of but never seen.

But even next to all these shocking things, the most ludicrous was the barbarian pirate's age. He was young, even a few years younger than Jensen, barely grown. Jensen couldn't believe that he was being captured by such a youth or that the clearly older crew would accept such a leader. But Captain they had called him.

"Has the little lord gotten lost?" he asked, voice deep and rough with mocking laughter, his accent drawing the vowels out slow and rolling. It was not a respectful title when he said it. His grossly slick fingers loosened their hold on Jensen's chin slowly and then dropped away.

Jensen drew himself up proudly, staring into the cold eyes before him. "I am Jensen, third scion of House Akala. And you will not speak to me that way."

"Ah, my lord," and it was still not at all respectful, "I will speak to you however I please. And I imagine your House will pay well for your return, either in money or in political concessions."

"They will never pay you anything or bend to your demands," Jensen hissed out. "They will pluck me from your fingers and scorch you out of the spaceways. Do you think you have enough strength to stand against our fleet?"

The pirate laughed, sounding genuinely amused. "They'll have to find you first."

"Jared," his crewwoman cut in. "This is far too dangerous." Jensen was shocked by her insubordination, but the pirate captain seemed untroubled by it as he turned to look at her. These barbarians were even more uncivilized than Jensen had ever imagined.

The captain shrugged. "Our orders were to raid for any resources we could find." Now Jensen was confused. Was this man not in charge? Were there more pirates somewhere else, a larger power structure of them? "I say we take him back to the mothership and see what we can trade him for."

Yes, there was definitely a larger group of these pirates out there.

Jensen had known that not everywhere in space was safe. The war with the Union had ended when he was a child, and an uneasy peace held between them and the Empire, mainly because both stayed within their own bounds. But there were still some unaffiliated worlds that had not yet accepted the civilizing prosperity of the Empire, that still lived in barbarian ignorance. The fall of the Old Republic centuries ago had left them scattered about the galaxy. In their primitive jealousy and hunger some of these people occasionally fell upon Empire ships and stole and destroyed. But they were not supposed to be large enough or organized enough to dare to reach right into the heart of the Empire and pluck a member of a noble House out of his own ship.

Apparently some of the crew members agreed with him on that, according to the frowns on their faces. But their young maybe-captain seemed sure of himself. They couldn't possibly be organized enough that he was a captain under a general, could they? Where were they from? Was this the first stirrings of an uprising, a war? It was difficult to imagine, but Jensen was starting to wonder if he might possibly actually be in danger.

The captain nodded at his crew. "Kelwyn, Guoliang, gather up anything in here that might be useful and take it to the hold. Then prepare to move out."

There wasn't much on board the runabout, just the small standard packages of emergency rations, medical supplies, and tools. Jensen had only been planning on being out for a few hours. He watched as the woman gathered up the emergency rations and the man took the medical supplies and they exited into their own ship.

"Are you going to be trouble?" the pirate asked, his gaze roaming up and down Jensen's body. He reached out and ran his hands roughly over Jensen's tunic, searching him. Jensen pulled away and glared at him. The pirate seemed more relaxed after that.

Jensen didn't think there was much he could do about his situation. He was unarmed and he certainly didn't know how to fight. All he could hope was that he would be able to send a message somehow. But that hope was dashed by the pirate's next words.

"Well, Jensen of House Akala, I certainly can't let you stay here. Come along."

He gestured and Jensen reluctantly preceded him out of the hatch and into the docking bay. The floor was rough and cold under the soles of his feet. As he walked toward the corridor entrance that the pirate indicated he felt the slight shiver of the ship's hyperdrive engines starting up. But the shiver was out of rhythm and accompanied by a high-pitched whine that pulsated through Jensen's bones and teeth. His heart started pounding and he froze in place.

The pirate gave Jensen a slight shove in the back. "Go on."

Jensen whirled to face him. "You can't go into hyper! Are you stupid, can't you hear it?"

The pirate looked genuinely confused. "Hear what?"

"That noise!" Jensen gestured at the metal walls around them. "The field stabilizers are out of phase. Can't the engineer hear, the pilot? What kind of space crew is this? If you go into hyper the ship will disintegrate!"

"I don't trust you."

This was too much. The sound was speeding up as the drives amped closer and closer to full power. There was only a moment left before the ship would slide out of normal space. And Jensen was trapped with a bunch of pirates who were too stupid and ignorant to even know how their own ship handled. "I don't care what happens to you, but I'm aboard right now. I don't want to die." He couldn't believe this. Even as he said it he couldn't really be scared because the situation was so unbelievable.

"What does someone like you know about drives?"

"You came out right on top of me! That type of spatial-distortion stress has effects. If you do that often it's no wonder your stabilizers are fried. Any idiot knows that. I can't believe-"

The ship wrenched and shuddered as it entered hyperdrive. The noise turned to a piercing shriek.

There was only one thing to do now. Jensen dashed back towards his own runabout, brushing past the pirate, and threw himself into the control chair. His shields were only back at quarter power after being shorted out by hyper-distortion earlier.

Even so, they were the only thing that might protect him from being dissolved into the flow of hyperspace as the pirate ship fell apart, unable to sustain its own field.

Jensen pressed the button to close the hatch and when it didn't close, he looked up to realize that the pirate captain was standing halfway in, halfway out of the runabout.

Then the pirate ship began to slither and crackle, creaking in pain as it broke apart into its constituent basic particles.

The pirate pressed his wrist comm. "Anjali, belay that. Drop out of hyper immediately."

"Captain-" The answering voice trembled and faded away.

It was too late for that. There was no time to waste. Jensen stood up, grabbed the pirate's arm, and dragged him the short distance inside. The hatch slid closed as soon as it was no longer obstructed. Jensen turned back to the controls and rerouted as much power as possible to the shields.

The viewscreen showed the docking bay of the pirate ship for a moment longer until everything disappeared in multicolor static. Driveless in hyperspace now, there was no way to access any information or take any control. Then the runabout dropped out of hyper. Not slid out the way it would have under a decelerating drive. Instead it fell out and fell hard, slamming into real space with an impact that knocked Jensen out of his seat and almost shook the ship apart.

Behind him he could hear the pirate babbling into his comm. "Anjali, Kelwyn, Guoliang, come in. Are you there? Respond." When Jensen turned to look the stricken expression on the man's face was clear: he knew it was futile but he couldn't admit that to himself.

Jensen realized that he had made a mistake. He should have shoved the pirate out of the hatch instead of pulling him in. Then he would be free. Instead he still had to deal with this man, and he couldn't very well toss him out of the ship now. The pirate still had his disruptor.

Also, Jensen didn't think he could actually go through with something like that. That was probably why he had pulled the pirate in without even thinking about it. He even felt bad for not saving the others.

Not that he should, not at all. Who knows what they would have done to him. They were criminals and they deserved their fate.

Instead Jensen ignored the pirate as best he could and climbed back up into the pilot's seat to check on the runabout's status.

According to the navigational analysis they were about eight lightyears from their last location, within a stellar system the computer tentatively identified as SPN-11-02-X. That was further away from his House than he had been before the pirates arrived, and in another direction.

The runabout was in even worse shape now. The shields were almost entirely drained, the gravity generator was on the brink of going out, and the hyperdrive was completely offline. The quantum routings in it had become delinked by the stress of the inter-spatial freefall and impact, their resonances lost in the loose flow of hyperspace. There was absolutely no way Jensen could repair that. The impulse drive was still intact, so he could move about within this stellar system, but he wasn't going anywhere else at any usable speed, nor could he send a message through hyper to his House.

He did still have an emergency beacon, but that bore its own risks in this situation. And he would have to make a decision on that front quickly.

Worst of all though, the jarring impact of the explosion and hyper-fall had damaged the oxygen recycler beyond use. Without that functioning there were only two hours of oxygen left aboard. No, make that only one hour, because there was another person with him.

The only hope was the fact that this system had planets. One of them, according to the computer, had a breathable atmosphere, basic plant and animal life, and no sentient inhabitants.

So those were Jensen's options: planetfall or suffocation.

As distasteful as the first was, the second was even worse.

Jensen was beginning to program in a course to the planet when the pirate approached from behind him and leaned over his shoulder.

"What are you doing?" the pirate asked.

"Well, since someone's carelessness damaged my ship," Jensen snapped, "I'm resorting to landing on the nearby planet."

The pirate let out an annoyed huff right by Jensen's ear and then examined the control panel. "No air or hyperdrive." He sank down into the second seat beside Jensen.

"Oh," Jensen replied, "so you do know how to read an instrument panel, at least."

"Don't complain so much. You're not the one who just lost three friends."

Jensen refused to look at the pirate anymore. "No, I'm just the one who tried to stop it from happening and save them from your stupidity." He returned to setting the course and engaged the impulse drive, slowly moving toward the planet as it grew from a dot in the viewscreen to a disc.

As the planet grew larger on the screen, the pirate finally broke the silence and said softly, "I knew that it was technically a risky move, but it should have been fine. I didn't think that... Everything was in good shape before..."

"There is no 'should' with quantum field stabilizers." Jensen tried to still be annoyed. The pirate sounded so sad and guilty that it was hard not to feel sorry for him at least a little. "They just are until they aren't anymore. So you never give them a reason not to be."

"Yeah, I'll keep that in mind." The response sounded neither grateful nor serious.

The planet was finally drawing closer now. Its surface was beginning to have details on the screen. Jensen had no idea which part of the land might be best to set down on. There were many places that were flat and large enough for the runabout to settle. Jensen cycled the options across the viewer. Some of them were almost survivable, but many were far too cold and covered with frozen water. Jensen was almost expecting the pirate to chime in with an opinion, but he didn't.

Jensen had to make a decision about the emergency beacon now before he landed on the planet. The beacon functioned in real space by emitting minor gravitic pulses and also had a limited call radius in hyperspace. Therefore he had to release it here in space; it wouldn't function on the planet's surface without causing dangerous disruptions. And it didn't have a self-contained ability to launch from the surface. It hadn't been designed to do that because no one had ever expected the runabout to set down on a planet.

The danger with turning on the beacon was that he had no idea who might respond to it. Since real space and hyperspace were not contiguous there was no way of telling from here which areas of real space would be reached by the local message range in hyperspace. If there were another related pirate ship out there, which was most probable, it might receive the distress call before any Empire ship did. Or some other enemy might respond to it.

Even if the Empire reached him first there was no telling how long it would take.

Even so, it was a risk that seemed necessary now. Without some form of communication the odds that he would ever be noticed by anyone were almost nil. And without a way to repair the hyperdrive he would be stranded in this system forever unless some other ship happened upon him.

After a few moments of final hesitation, Jensen launched the beacon and it began broadcasting.

One decision made, he turned to his next task, picked a spot on the planet's surface that seemed the least offensive, and aimed toward it, syncing up with the planet's rotation as he approached. The hull should be able to withstand the atmospheric entry and the landing, but with the shields disabled it was going to be another bumpy ride. Jensen fastened his seat restraints and the pirate followed his example.

As the runabout sped down into the atmospheric envelope of the planet its hull heated and it shook from the extreme forces. The computer could not guide a full landing sequence and Jensen had to keep a tight hold on the controls. He had never seriously believed he would ever have to do this and calculating it had only ever been an intellectual exercise before. Time seemed to stretch out, the discomfort of the heat and the shaking pressure going on and on interminably.

Finally the ship was low enough and deep enough in the atmosphere that Jensen could pull the nose up and flatten out the flight path. The shaking calmed down. He swooped and glided through the air until he reached the location he had selected for landing.

A wide, flat space of ground covered only by tiny plants stood in the middle of a sprawl of much larger tree-like plants. There was an indication of water nearby. The runabout would be able to rest on the ground and the air had enough oxygen in the right mix with other harmless gases to be breathable. Jensen programmed the viewscreen to show only the analytical readout; he didn't want a picture of the surroundings.

Jensen lightly set the runabout down in the center of the open space and turned off the impulse engines, reducing power as much as possible to all systems.

The next step, as unfortunate as it was necessary, was to open the entry hatch. The whole point of coming here was his desire to continue breathing. Jensen didn't want to breathe the planet's unrecycled air, but he would have to. He unfastened himself from the seat and took a last deep breath of the good, pure, clean air in the ship, then opened the hatch partway. The bright glow of a sun's light filtered in.

A rush of cold air flowed in from outside, prickling over the exposed skin on Jensen's arms and legs. It smelled of... something, but he couldn't place the scent. He shuddered at the first taste of sucking it into his lungs. Exhaling was a relief, though unfortunately had to be followed by another inhale.

Well, at least he wasn't going to suffocate now.

Jensen turned back to the instrument console. The next step was to figure out how much he could repair the runabout. After he failed to return to the House someone would eventually come out looking for him. But they would start off by looking in the direction he had originally traveled, not here. Hopefully they would notice the emergency beacon.

There was no way he could get the hyperdrive working again, but if he could fix the oxygen recycler and do some work on the shields and gravity, then he could at least get back into space. He would be both more comfortable and more visible there. And just possibly he could-

"Aren't you going to go outside?" The pirate's voice cut through Jensen's musing.

"No," Jensen answered. Of course he wasn't going to go outside. Not if he could help it.

"Well, I'm not going to stay cooped up in here for no reason." The pirate shook his head, his expression clearly indicating that he thought Jensen was being strange. Of course, it was actually the barbarian who was being bizarre and unreasonable, as Jensen knew. The pirate continued, "I probably shouldn't leave my prisoner unattended, but I really don't think you're going anywhere." Jensen spun around at that to glare at him. "You are still my prisoner," the pirate said calmly.

Jensen lifted his chin in command. "No. We're on my ship now, not yours. Your crew is gone and you are only alive by my mercy. I am most certainly not your prisoner and, in fact, I'm placing you under arrest. As soon as possible I will turn you over to the justice of the Empire."

"Oh, really?" The pirate actually had the gall to laugh at that, throwing his head back and slapping his hand on his thigh. Then he ran his fingers very unsubtly over the handle of his disruptor. "Sure, if you say so." The sarcasm was heavy in his voice.

"Of course. I do say so." Jensen didn't even care that the pirate was the one with a weapon. No one ever doubted his word. Once they were back in civilization this pirate would be brought to justice and pay for his crimes.

"Well, then, my lord," the pirate asked insouciantly, "would you be so kind as to open the hatch enough for me to go outside?"

Jensen considered it. There wasn't really anywhere for the pirate to go on this planet or anything for him to do. And at least outside he wouldn't be in the way as Jensen worked, so he opened the hatch fully. He had a glimpse of the blue of accumulated atmosphere and the green of growing plants for an instant as the pirate stood up, bowed mockingly to him, and exited. Then Jensen closed the hatch most of the way again, shutting out the disturbing view.

At some point, Jensen would have to try to get more information out of the pirate regarding his compatriots. He wasn't sure how that would go. The pirate did seem to like to talk and run his mouth, just not necessarily in a helpful manner.

Back to more immediate tasks, Jensen's next step was to turn on the long-range sensors to their greatest possible extent in order to notice any incoming spaceships as soon as possible.

Then he had to repair the oxygen recycler. It was both probably the simplest part to fix and the most necessary if Jensen ever wanted to get into space again. Which he certainly did want.

Luckily the pirates hadn't gotten around to stripping the emergency repair kit, so Jensen had a very basic set of tools. It wasn't going to be enough, though. He would have to cannibalize some parts from other sections of the runabout to form a few other tools he needed. Hopefully they would suffice.

Jensen opened the panel covering the oxygen recycler membrane. There were many parts of the runabout's hull that hid swathes of bioelectric cellular membranes that broke down carbon dioxide using simulated enzymatic-metabolic pathways. The oxygen was released back into the cabin for human respiration and the carbon was utilized to preserve the integrity of the membranes. The ventilators in the wall panels allowed the air to flow in and out. Now, the energetic shockwaves caused by the uncontrolled hyper-distortion had burned through the membranes, overloading and surging them. Most of them were destroyed. The few cells that survived would perish soon, too, suffocated by the pressure of the damaged ones.

Jensen set to work carefully scraping out the damaged membrane sections and dumping them in the solid matter recycler. The few surviving sections of membrane would expand and grow so long as they were provided with CO2, a little water, and the fertilizer produced by recycling the waste.

Hopefully they would grow quickly and healthfully. At best it would take a few cycles before there was enough to provide sufficient oxygen for a human pilot. And the solid matter recycler was probably something Jensen would soon have to at least temporarily dismantle in order to create tools to fix the shields and grav.

It had taken a lot of concentration and a few hours to cut out the membrane precisely enough to preserve the surviving patches. After all that, Jensen realized that he was thirsty and hungry and also had to relieve himself. The last at least could be accomplished inside the ship and would be beneficial to the membrane's regrowth.

The first two, however... The pirates had removed his emergency food rations, and the small bit of water previously inside the recycler, plus the urine he had just added to it, was needed for the oxygen membrane.

This whole situation was about as awful as Jensen could imagine. He had thought that being captured by pirates was bad, but right now he was almost longing for the comfort of the pirate ship.

In order to distract himself again from the tight feeling in his stomach and the dryness of his mouth, Jensen thought that he would ask the pirate about his missing other ship before starting work on anything else. He slowly approached the entry hatch and peered out through the slight opening. Glancing from side to side he finally caught sight of the pirate just a short distance away.

The pirate was lying on his back right on the ground as if it were perfectly clean and comfortable, ankles crossed, head pillowed on one arm and the other flung over his eyes.

Jensen firmed his shoulders and opened the ship's hatch. The air was cold and, fully exposed to it now, Jensen found himself shaking from it, his skin tightening up. And the air moved. It moved in chaotic swirls, forcing itself through and under the light material of his short tunic.

The pirate turned, levering himself up on one elbow to watch Jensen. His eyes were reddened and puffy as if from crying. Well, Jensen wasn't going to, couldn't, spare any pity for him at the moment.

Jensen looked away from the too open vista before him and focused down on the ground. He could see the brown dirt and the odd little plants growing in it. He slowly lowered one foot until it touched the dirt and then quickly drew it back up. The dirt was cold, and slightly damp, and very granular. He frantically shook his leg, scraping the sole of his foot against the edge of the hatch, but some of the dirt still stuck to his skin. Jensen shuddered. He suddenly fully realized why the word dirt was related to the word dirty.

The pirate's stupid eyes widened and then narrowed as he watched. Jensen drew himself up straighter under that gaze, trying to ignore the feeling of his foot.

"You've really never been on a planet before, have you?" the pirate asked. He looked like he was about to laugh.

Of course he had never been on any planets before, unlike this backwards primitive who kept insulting him. "I've visited many Houses and many star systems," Jensen replied coolly, lest this foolish barbarian dare to imagine him ignorant and parochial.

"You've never been outside." Now the pirate did laugh, with an obnoxious little snorting sound.

Jensen didn't bother to dignify this pointless line of questioning with another response. Instead he took a deep breath of cold smelly air and stepped down onto the ground. He refused to look weak or scared in front of this man.

The dirt was nasty under his feet and the little plants were brushing at his ankles. Even the air wouldn't stop touching him, twirling against his skin and through his hair. Jensen looked up. The sun was a blindingly bright spot in the middle of the too far away blue ceiling of atmosphere. The gravity on this planet was turned up too high. And it was still cold. He didn't like it.

Jensen involuntarily pictured himself and his runabout as separate tiny dots on the surface of the planet. There was nothing protecting him from the vast stretch of ground, from the heavy accumulation of atmosphere, from whatever climactic chaos might be brewing. Nothing between him and space but the open planet. No hulls, no locks, nothing to keep him safe. Just the openness stretching on and on into the distance. It pinned him down and paralyzed him for an instant and he had to fight to breathe the air into his tightened lungs, this air that hadn't even been recycled.

He glanced around a little frantically until he focused on a line of bigger plants a short ways in front of him. They looked tall enough to stand under, though they were scrawny and misshapen compared to the trees in the hydroponic gardens in his House. Under there it might not seem as open and exposed. Maybe not as cold, either. Jensen crossed his arms tightly over his chest and took another step toward them.

"Hey, do you want my boots?" the pirate asked. He had stood up and come closer to Jensen. Jensen glared at him for a moment, distracted from his previous worries, now torn between disgust at the dirt and disgust at the thought of wearing something made from a dead animal's skin. He decided live plants on his feet were preferable to dead animals and strode on toward the tree-things, not caring whether the pirate followed after or remained.

Then he stepped on a plant with teeth that dug into his skin painfully. He hopped away from it, an embarrassing gasp escaping his lips, and his other foot came down on another, even sharper plant. The attack sent him stumbling and he barely kept himself from falling down bodily onto the dirt and the plants' teeth before getting his feet back on a safe patch of ground. When he looked at the sole of his foot there was a drop of red blood amongst the horrifying brown mess of dirt.

The pirate was right next to him now. "Seriously. Here." He sat down on the dirt again and pulled the huge things off his feet, handing them out to Jensen as he stood back up. He did still have some kind of cloth covering on his feet.

Jensen took the items warily, dropping them on the ground and nudging them with his toe until they were upright. He could hardly believe he was about to put dirty death-ridden barbarian garments on his body, but bad as that was, having his extremities torn to shreds by carnivorous plants seemed worse at the moment. He had to hold his breath to keep from shuddering as he slid first one foot and then the next into the boots. He took a few more hesitant steps, his feet heavy and unwieldy, the boots slipping a little loose on them. But at least no more plants bit him.

"This, too," the pirate added and removed his jacket. Underneath it he had on a tight shirt, the same shade of black, which left his arms bare and revealed the over-swollen lumps of his muscles.

Jensen accepted the jacket as well, since it couldn't be much worse. He wrinkled his nose again at the rot and chemical stink of it as he slipped it on. But once it was on he felt considerably less cold, the solid mass of it blocking out the moving air. And the inside was at least lined with some kind of soft cloth; it was also still warm from the pirate's body, which was somehow oddly comfortable even while being disgusting.

Jensen started walking toward the dubious protection of the tree-things again, staring warily at them now to try and deduce if they would attack. The pirate kept pace beside him, swinging his arms and babbling inanely.

"It's such a lovely day. I wonder why no one lives here?"

This barbarian was insane. No one lived on this planet because it was a nasty cold ball of dirt with vicious flora, obviously.

They reached the beginning of the tree-things and Jensen stepped between two of them, ducking to avoid touching a low-hanging tree-limb and stepping high at the same time to avoid the mass of medium-sized plants growing at the edge between open space and trees. The pirate followed him in. After he had gone far enough to put a few of the large plants between himself and the open world Jensen felt a little better. He was still standing on dirt and surrounded by plants, breathing less than fresh air, and wearing awful dead barbarian clothes, but at least he had something enclosing him now, shutting away the huge view. It was no real protection but it allowed him to relax a bit.

There was a strange sound coming from further in. It was a little like pouring water, except deeper and more multifaceted. Jensen wasn't sure if it might be dangerous. But the pirate was striding ahead now, moving toward the sound. He would never admit to it, but Jensen felt a little safer with the pirate around. The man at least had a savage understanding of this environment, so Jensen followed after him now.

Once they had passed a few more layers of trees Jensen realized that the sound was actually the water that had been indicated by his earlier scans. A large amount of it was just out in the open, pouring through a cleft in the ground almost as wide as Jensen's arm span. It came from somewhere hidden away in the trees and wended along until it disappeared into the distance in the thick tangle of plants again. Jensen could see the dirt it flowed over, the brownish tinge to the water, pieces of plant matter floating in it and some kind of small aquatic animal moving quickly away from them.

The pirate knelt down and removed his gloves and placed them in his pocket, then scooped up some brown water in his hands and took a long sip of it. Jensen shuddered.

"I'm not drinking that," he stated firmly.

"Nature cleanses it as well as a ship's recyclers." The pirate shrugged. Jensen didn't believe him. That did not look at all clean.

And this wasn't nature. Nature was the vastness of space, the growth of stars, the spin of galaxies, the minute swarming of basic particles coupling and uncoupling. This tiny, tawdry lump of minerals and atmosphere was insignificant on the scale of real things, incapable of cleansing anything amongst all this dirt.

The pirate shrugged again, watching Jensen's face. "Then you can just go thirsty."

That statement caused Jensen's mouth to feel even drier, his tongue sticky and clinging inside it. His stomach was twisting in his body. He crouched down hesitantly, weight on his booted feet, not wanting to touch the ground with his skin again, trying not to slip on the soft and wet dirt at the edge of the water and fall into it. He reached a hand out slowly and let the tips of his fingers touch the brown water. It was even colder than the air and he pulled away from it quickly.

But his dry, gritty mouth drove him to slip his hands into the water and scoop some up, copying the pirate. Jensen raised the water to his lips and sipped it. He expected to be able to feel the dirt in it, but he couldn't. It was cold, and it tasted different from recycled water, but actually not too bad.

It was that realization that made him almost spit it out, sickened by how far he had fallen, to be complacent about drinking this dirty water.

"See?" the pirate said, and that was too much. Jensen had already swallowed the sip, but he tossed what was left in his hands directly in the pirate's face. The pirate stared at him in shock for a moment and then burst out laughing, not even bothering to wipe himself off, just letting the water drip from his chin as he threw his head back.

"You will treat me with more respect," Jensen said, standing up and stepping away from the water's edge. "I am the third scion of House Akala."

The pirate stopped laughing and stood up as well, looming over him, reaching out and grabbing both Jensen's wrists in his hands, holding firm. "I've been treating you with more respect than you've done anything to deserve," he declared, calmly yet coldly. "And you continue to act like a spoiled child, my lord, with nary a 'please' nor 'thank you' to a kindness. You believe that the entire universe is already yours, to use or destroy as befits your latest whim."

"I? You don't seem at all grateful for the fact that I saved your worthless life once already and am in the middle of doing so again." Jensen tugged his wrists but couldn't break free of the pirate's grasp.

"Well, then, my lord, accept my oh so humble thanks for that." The pirate did let go of him finally and Jensen took a step back away from him. The pirate raised an arm and wiped the drops of water off his face. "I suppose I'm glad to have survived, though it does mean I'm stuck here with you."

Jensen frowned, even more angered by the insult. "You're the one who caused this. And you're the one who has no regard for the personal rights of others and goes around kidnapping them for profit."

The pirate laughed again, but with no mirth this time, just a short almost pained exhale. "Those are fine words coming from a blasted noble of the Empire such as yourself." He turned then and strode away deeper into the growth of trees. Jensen stared after until he could no longer see or hear the other man at all. The pirate continually uttered such infuriating nonsense, Jensen thought.

But despite his dislike for the man, Jensen felt less at ease now that he was gone. He had always enjoyed being alone before and this was the first time in his life that he longed for the sparse comfort brought by being with another human, even such a one as that. As he gazed around him he kept seeing flashes of motion. The trees shook from the movement of the atmosphere, light and shadow shifting all around in a way that left Jensen unsure what might herald the arrival of some danger. He could hear the susurrations the plants made as they moved, hear the tinkling of the flowing water, hear strange little sounds that might be animals. Any of these plants or animals could be vicious. Any of these atmospheric movements might become dangerously extreme.

And besides, Jensen had so far failed in his mission to get more information from the pirate.

He finally knelt shamefully on the ground again and drank a few more handfuls of the dirty water. He would never make it home if he died of thirst.

After that Jensen headed back to his runabout where he felt a bit more secure. He didn't go inside it, however. He wasn't going to let this planet defeat him. He was stronger than it was, wasn't he? He found a spot where a large solid piece of metallic mineral ore protruded from the dirt and sat down upon it. It was almost clean, and smooth and hard like a civilized seat. Jensen drew his legs up to his chest and wrapped the pirate's jacket as much around himself as he could. It was warmer that way.

He was not going to let himself feel small and exposed. He was not going to give in to this. He was going to stay out here until he had it under control and then, only then, when it was a free choice and not a retreat forced by fear, was he going to go back into the ship and continue with the repairs.

Jensen stared fixedly at the line of trees in the near distance, not looking down at the ground, not looking up at the air. There were many places in his House where the walls were that far away. The large audience chamber, the banquet hall, the ballroom, the hydroponic gardens. He would just try to pretend he was there.

He repeated to himself over and over that it was fine. He was safe enough here. He had oxygen. The grav was secure and holding him in place. He wasn't going to be sucked into space. He wasn't going to be sucked off the ground and into the atmosphere. And he would pretend that the openness was an advantage: if anything happened, he would be able to see it coming. He would have a chance to get to the runabout, which was right there, and be safe inside the hull.

Jensen was still stoically sitting there when the pirate reappeared. He was carrying what looked like a handful of small fruits that he held out to Jensen as if he hadn't just stormed off in complaint about Jensen's behavior. "You want some?"

Jensen turned up his nose. He had already abased himself enough just now. He could survive without eating a little longer. "I wouldn't want you to feel you have to offer me anything," he retorted petulantly. Besides, he had never seen such fruits before in his life and he wasn't sure how the pirate even knew they were edible. He would wait and see whether they had an ill effect on the other man. He could try scanning them, he supposed, but he didn't want to help the pirate out even that much at this moment.

"Unfortunately, if you starve, my chances of making it off here are even less," the pirate answered. Jensen looked away from him, staring at the trees in the opposite direction. "Eventually you'll have to eat something, even if it did grow in the dirt."

"Well, I did have emergency rations on my ship, but someone stole them," Jensen snapped.

"Fine, then." Behind him Jensen could hear the pirate chewing. The sound made Jensen's mouth water and his stomach feel even more painfully tight and empty, but he refused to give in. After a moment the pirate spoke again. "You are going to be able to fix that runabout, aren't you?"

"Partially." Jensen didn't want to reveal yet exactly what he could and couldn't fix and what his plans were. But he did still need to get more information from the pirate. He turned back to look at the other man again. "My House will be searching for me, as well."

"So will my crew."

"They'll have to find you first," Jensen threw back. The pirate actually grinned at that. Then he realized this was just the opening he needed. He knew for sure now that there was another pirate ship. "Are you really the captain?"

"No, my mother is." The pirate smiled, rueful and lopsided. "This is only the second mission I've been in charge of. And somehow I think the next won't be coming for a long, long time. Though that might depend on whether I manage to deliver you or not." He popped another fruit into his mouth. Well, at least that made much more sense than imagining this barely-grown man as the leader of a whole pirate crew. "Of course," he continued, still chewing as he spoke, "if you don't starve and you manage to repair the ship before anyone else finds us, apparently I'm under arrest. But I might actually prefer an Empire prison to being stranded here alone forever."

Jensen still had a slight gnawing doubt, reinforced by the pirate's cavalier tone, of whether he could stand up to the disruptor the pirate had. But without hyperdrive, there was no way the pirate could force Jensen back to his mother's ship. He couldn't travel to another solar system on impulse drive. They would still be at the mercy of chance, depending on what sort of ship responded to the beacon first. And he thought he might agree: at this point, he would probably prefer being a prisoner of the pirates to being stranded here for the rest of his life. Which couldn't possibly be very long under these conditions. Jensen gave a slight nod to the pirate as if to acknowledge that, then stood up and went back inside the runabout to continue his repairs.

As soon as he was inside he felt much calmer and more natural. Inside the safety of his ship he immediately and gladly removed the barbarian boots and jacket and tossed them aside.

The solid matter recycler had finished processing the destroyed oxygen membrane matter, and Jensen shunted the nutritive results of that into the membrane's feeding tubes. Unfortunately, like the water recycler, those resources had to be dedicated to the oxygen repair and couldn't be consumed by him. Now that the solid matter recycler was not in use Jensen could dismantle its mechanical parts to create tools for fixing the shields and the gravity.

The pirate had followed him inside and now sat in the pilot's chair, popping the last of his handful of fruit into his mouth and chewing loudly. Jensen tried to ignore the sound and the audience as he popped the hatch on the solid matter recycler.

"Is that really the most important thing to work on?" the pirate asked. Jensen didn't answer the inaccurate question. He used his emergency tool kit's screwdriver to jiggle out some of the thin metal blades and wires from the primary matter breakdown chamber. He could use those to work inside the grav and shield generators.

Jensen opened the panel over the grav matrix to reach the top layer of settings. He would need to use the wires to bridge the gaps in the synaptic interfaces that regulated the gravity and enforced it evenly and constantly all over the ship. Until he puzzled out the necessary complex pattern of connections, though, the grav would continue to be intermittent.

The pirate interrupted him again. "I'm surprised that a noble like you is good at actual work like this." His voice was calm, almost pretending to friendly.

Jensen glanced up, brushing his hair out of his face, answering coldly. "We are allowed to have hobbies."

The pirate raised one eyebrow at that, looking a little doubtful somehow, but when he continued he changed tack. "I'm not much of an engineer myself."

"I noticed." If he was going to be insulted so often, he was going to give it right back. Besides, it was only the truth.

"I've focused more on tactics."

"You aren't any good at that, either."

The pirate didn't answer, his face shutting down. Recrossing his legs on the deck where he was seated, Jensen bent back to his work, hoping for fewer interruptions. He still had a lot to do, and he was starting to feel fairly tired, along with the hunger still knotting his stomach. Also, he could see that outside the ship it was getting darker. The light was dimming down to a strange green-gold. This side of the planet must be turning away from the sun. It would look more normal once Jensen could see the stars again.

"I don't..." The pirate hesitated for a moment. "I don't know exactly what you're doing down there, but if there's anything I can do to help..."

"I don't need your help, pirate," Jensen snapped. Then he reconsidered. "The one thing you could do is increase the illumination a bit." He had set it to a low level to conserve more energy when the sun was shining in. The pirate touched the control panel at the pilot's seat and the lights brightened.

Just as he was reaching in to do another delicate touch to the interface, the pirate interrupted yet again. "I do have a name, my lord." Jensen did remember what it was, but he wasn't going to say that and give the pirate - Jared - the satisfaction of thinking he was noticeable.

"I don't care."

"It's Jared. And your name..." The pirate sounded too falsely thoughtful now. "What was it? Jensen? Yes, that was it, Jensen."

"You don't have permission to address me in that fashion," Jensen snapped.

"I hardly think I need your permission, Jensen. How can you stop me?"

"Maybe I can't. But I could leave you here when I take off." If ordering wouldn't work then Jensen had to admit to himself that he really had no way of physically forcing the pirate to do anything.

"Not that you're going far. You can't fix the hyperdrive with some wire and a screwdriver, Jensen. We're still both just sitting here together waiting to see who comes by to find us first." The pirate crossed his arms over his chest as he said that.

"I, for one, am not just sitting here."

"Yes, you're a paragon of the unflinching determination that's made the Empire so great." His voice was still dripping with sarcasm and disdain.

"At least I'm not a worthless barbarian pirate."

"I'd rather be an acknowledged pirate than a blasted parasite such as you."

Jensen just stared at him. The barbarian mind made no sense. The pirates raided and pilfered the bounty that the Empire worked to produce. There was no need to even show that he had heard such blithering. He glanced back down at the inner workings of the grav panel.

"See," the pirate continued, "you can't even admit to anything. How many worlds have to starve for you to jaunt about like this?"

"If whatever filthy planet you come from is so needy they would do better to join the Empire. We extend our largesse to any and all interested unaffiliated worlds."

The pirate laughed with his pained little huff again. "Oh, I've seen your largesse. Padalek is a protectorate."

Jensen couldn't speak for a moment, and he realized his mouth was actually uselessly open and so closed it with a snap. He had never imagined that these pirates might come from a protectorate inside the Empire. Why would anyone who was a citizen do something like this? It was inconceivable. Any understanding he had possessed of the pressures that might have driven a desperate and ignorant barbarian to such actions, and therefore some measure of pity for him, was gone. The only reason a citizen could behave in such a way was surely sheer malice. He slowly edged the few mere centimeters away that he could until his back was pressed against the hull. His plight of being trapped here with this man suddenly seemed far more dangerous. Before Jensen had not really believed that the pirate would harm or kill him, but now, what if he took it into his head to randomly escalate his senseless violence? There was no way to guess what he might do.

Not wanting to give any indication of his thoughts or any further stimulus to the pirate now, Jensen returned to working on the grav, but this time with his back prickling and itching warily, listening carefully and looking back surreptitiously every once in a while at the pirate behind him. It hindered his concentration on his task.

The pirate remained quietly seated, his gaze still pensively on Jensen's actions.

Finally Jensen decided he had done enough of the fine-grained work for now. He was worn out, his hands shaking and eyes pained, his hunger and returning thirst exhausting him and blanking his mind.

He wanted to go outside - a thought he had never imagined he would have - so that he could see the stars. Then he wanted to sleep. But he was worried about the pirate now. What might the man try to do while Jensen slept?

Jensen stood and had to brace himself against the hull for a moment as his head spun and sparkles appeared before his eyes. He walked outside into what was now a dark world with no clear objects around him, lifting himself up on his toes to minimize his exposure to the dirt and the possible danger from the plants. As he looked up toward the dark and the stars it seemed more like the version of open space that he was familiar with.

Until he realized it was not truly alike. The stars were wrong. Jensen closed his eyes and then opened them again, thinking maybe he was still seeing sparks from exhaustion. But no, it was still like that. The stars appeared to move and flutter and wink at him. Was there something wrong with this area of space that he hadn't noticed on the way down?

Then he realized that it was the atmosphere. The distortion was caused by the light passing through so much accumulated air before it reached him. This planet couldn't do anything right. It even marred the distant stars with its nasty effects, which ought to remain pure and untouched by it.

And it was even colder now without the sun's warmth. Jensen shivered and wrapped his arms around himself.

Jensen spun around as he heard the pirate jump down to the ground from the ship. "It's a nice night, isn't it?" the pirate said, stepping closer to Jensen. The pirate's form was silhouetted against the light coming from inside the runabout but Jensen couldn't see his expression in the dark.

"No, it's not." Jensen took a few wary steps to the side. He didn't want to be out here anymore. "I'm going inside to sleep. You should stay out here."

The pirate's head tilted sideways and he didn't say anything for a moment. Then he turned and leaned inside, pulling out his jacket and boots from where Jensen had dropped them just beside the entrance. He stepped away, giving Jensen a clear path to the ship's hatch.

Jensen went back inside, watching the pirate the whole time, and closed the hatch almost all the way, with just a little crack open for oxygen to enter, then locked it in place with an override. That would hopefully keep him safe while he slept. The pirate shouldn't be able to get in.

He dimmed the lights to a barely visible glow, reclined the pilot's seat, and curled up in it.

It took a long time for him to fall asleep. He had never gone to bed hungry before in his life, and the twisting and clenching emptiness in his stomach, the dryness in his mouth, distracted him and kept him aware of his body and his thoughts, preventing him from calming and slipping off to sleep.

He felt alone, here in this place where everything was wrong, and nothing worked. He was uncertain what would come with the next cycle. How long he would be here.

What his unwilling companion here might do.

But he was not going to let the situation break him this easily.

Eventually Jensen succumbed to his exhaustion and when he woke there was bright light coming in through the edges of the hatch.

His mouth tasted foul, his whole body felt filthy, and his skin hurt, all hot and tight. When Jensen looked at his arm it was reddened and covered in small brown dots.

The sun. The sun had damaged him during just his brief exposure to it.

And he was even more hungry and thirsty than before.

Jensen stood up and had to hold onto the edge of the chair as another wave of dizziness pulsed through him. Thankfully it was only momentary.

He had dismantled the solid matter recycler so it was a good thing he didn't have to use that right now. He relieved himself into the water recycler and again was torn for a moment between leaving that for the oxygen membrane and taking it for himself. Not that there was much liquid in it since he had had so little to drink the cycle before. But in the end he reminded himself how important it was for the oxygen membrane to regrow.

Now of course came the question of what he was going to do about food and water. He would have to drink more of that dirty water. That was a certainty: there was nothing else to drink and he couldn't survive without it. Technically he could go a little longer without eating, it wouldn't kill him, but Jensen was realizing how very painful it would be, and it was already having a negative impact on his performance.

And in order to secure either water or food, he would have to go outside again. Back into that dangerously open and disgusting environment. Where the pirate was waiting.

Jensen took a deep breath, steeling himself, and opened the hatch all the way, clinging to the edge of it as he looked outside.

There was the pirate, just a short ways from the ship, sitting on the ground with an actual fire in front of him. Jensen could see the hot red flames leaping, hear them crackling. He pulled back automatically. The fire would consume all the oxygen. Then he reminded himself that no, it would not consume all the oxygen here. What was more of a danger was the chance that it would go wild and burn up all the plants, sweep its flames across the ship, leave this a scorched and barren place.

How could the pirate do something so dangerous and foolish? Of course, the pirate was a dangerous and insane fool anyway, so that was the answer to that question.

The pirate looked over and noticed Jensen standing there. "It's safe. It's contained," he said, gesturing to the fire. Jensen could see, now, that the pirate must have cleared some plants away, because there was a circle of bare dirt with the fire inside it, the flames consuming the pieces of tree piled there. "And I had an idea."

"This example of your ideas," Jensen replied, pointing to the fire, "doesn't give me any more confidence in them than I had before."

"I thought," the pirate continued as if Jensen hadn't even spoken, "that I could take the container down to the stream and run the water through the recycler for you."

That brought such a flash of relief that Jensen pulled out of his whirl of worry and annoyance for a moment. Then he berated himself for not having that idea already. He just hadn't thought to introduce the outside water into the system. But if it were put through the recycler, then it would be clean and he could drink it. He could drink as much as he wanted... That was about the best thing he could imagine right now, pathetic as that proved him.

The pirate grinned, Jensen's expression presumably having betrayed his thoughts. "There, see? Also, you can have those if you want." He nodded now to where his boots and jacket were set on the ground right by the entry. "And I got more food."

Jensen supposed that he would deign to continue using the pirate's vestments, horrid as they were, because it was still cold and he still had little desire to have his feet maimed by the wildlife on this planet. He slipped his feet into the boots as he stepped out of the runabout and picked up the jacket, repressing his distaste.

Walking warily closer, Jensen saw now that there was a large leaf on the ground by the pirate bearing more fruit and another with a few objects that looked like pictures Jensen had seen of the reproductive cycle of certain animals. He wasn't sure what the pirate had those for. These fruits were of a kind Jensen recognized. They were grown in the hydroponic gardens of his House. Obviously this world had been inhabited, or at least seeded, by the Old Republic. There might be ruins and artifacts somewhere that he hadn't bothered to look closely for when they were coming in from space. If there were any that were close enough to reach without transportation they could be interesting and possibly helpful.

Jensen found a mostly flat lump of mineral to sit on that was far enough from the fire to feel safe. The pirate slid the leaf covered in fruit over toward Jensen, who carefully reached out and picked up one of them. It was firm and ripe, though smaller and less evenly shaped than he would normally expect. It did, though, have a blemish on the side where it looked like something had bored into it. Jensen put it down with a shudder and examined the three other fruits until he found one that was unmarked.

He was so hungry, and looking at the fruit was making his dry mouth water, but he still couldn't stop thinking about how it had grown out here in the open, exposed and dirty, and then been sitting on the ground a moment ago.

"Just eat it," the pirate said in annoyance. "I don't particularly want the Empire to find me with your corpse and charge me for your murder."

"Of course you wouldn't be smart enough to hide the evidence," Jensen snapped back.

The pirate laughed another of his huge laughs at that. Jensen didn't appreciate being mocked. "It's good to know you can make a joke."

"I wasn't joking."

The pirate sobered and looked at him. "That's more true to form. Besides, it's not like they'd need evidence." He stood up and walked toward the ship, leaving Jensen confused again by another of his inexplicable statements. He disappeared inside and Jensen could hear the clang of a panel opening. He dropped the fruit he was still holding back onto the leaf and ran over to make sure the pirate wasn't sabotaging his work.

The pirate was easing out one of the small holding containers from the water recycler. He pulled it free and stared at Jensen. "I'm just getting you your water, my lord. I'm not breaking anything." He stepped out of the hatch and brushed past Jensen in a huff, then walked off toward the trees and the water.

There was no end to how infuriating that barbarian was.

Jensen sat down on his mineral lump again, eyeing the fire even more suspiciously now that he was alone with it. And he did wonder how the pirate had started it. He would like to shut himself away from it but someone needed to keep watch over it, though with no extinguisher he wasn't sure what he would do to turn it off if it went out of control. It couldn't be left alone, though. It was dangerous.

Though he did have to admit, if only to himself, that it was radiating a fairly pleasant warmth.

Jensen searched through the fruits until he relocated the one that he had decided was in the best shape. It was indeed true that he needed to eat something. If the solid matter recycler were online he could put these fruits through it and create a product more palatable and fit for consumption. But it was still dismantled. So this was his only option.

He shut his eyes, tried to forget about its origins, and took a bite.

It was sweet and good and the juice of it burst into his mouth. Then when he swallowed his stomach began to twist and claw even sharper inside him so Jensen devoured the rest of the fruit at a speed almost as intense as his shame.

While he was eating the next least bad-looking fruit the pirate returned. Jensen kept eating and let the man replace the now full container in the water recycler. He wanted to be able to rush in there and drink but he would have to wait a while for the water to be cleaned and processed.

The pirate came back out and sat next to the fire on Jensen's side. He was quiet for a moment, glancing sidelong at Jensen a few times as Jensen finished off the second fruit. Then he reached out toward the other leaf with its mysterious objects.

"I didn't manage to catch anything but eggs," he said ruefully as he picked up one of the hard greenish ovoids. Then he cracked it open on a flat mineral surface that was half inside the flames and coals of the fire and let its gooey insides run and pool in the center of the surface. They started to congeal and bubble in the heat and become more solid.

"But what is it for?" Jensen asked, unable to contain his curiosity any longer.

The pirate looked at him like he couldn't believe what Jensen had said. "Eating," he replied, his tone indicating that what he said was perfectly self-evident when actually it was anything but.

It was awful. That was some kind of animal's attempt at reproducing and it looked like the most disgusting kind of bodily fluids and Jensen couldn't believe anyone would eat it. Dirty fruit was bad enough but this was even more beyond the pale. And Jensen said this even while wearing clothes made from dead animals. Wait, did that mean... Did that mean that the pirate had been trying to catch animals and kill them and eat their corpses? It was unbelievable. Jensen had no idea how the man could be a citizen of the Empire and act like this. It was as if he had no standards at all.

The egg thing had now fully solidified. The pirate tore off a piece of leaf, folded it up, and used it to lift the egg thing off the mineral surface. Jensen couldn't even think that being on the ground could make the egg thing any more dirty than it already was by virtue of its own nature, and he had to look away, shuddering, as the pirate popped it into his mouth.

"Better than I expected from the cooking method," the pirate said. "You want one?"

"No!" Jensen exclaimed. He had not sunk as far as that and he hoped with all his might that he would make it off this planet long before he ever reached that point.

"Okay," the pirate chuckled. "More for me." And he cracked another egg open.

Jensen stood up and went inside the runabout to check on the progress of the water recycler and get away from the pirate's disgusting habits. Only some of the water had cycled through but it was enough done by now that he could have a drink.

The clean, cool water was the most amazing thing he had ever experienced. He no longer felt so dried up and desperate. He was refreshed and brought back to life.

With water and food inside him and some sleep behind him Jensen was ready to go back to work now. He shucked off the boots and jacket near the hatch because they would only get in his way and he still didn't like wearing them.

He still needed to finish the connections for the grav generator, but he wanted to look at the shields more before he went back to that.

Jensen had just opened the access hatch to the shield controls when the pirate came inside, carrying the last two fruits, and settled himself in the pilot's seat again, raising it upright and setting the fruits on the dash panel.

"You can see I didn't break the water recycler," he said, "so possibly there's something I can do?"

"I don't need your help here," Jensen answered.

"I've been helping you all along and you continue to not even notice. You have the most horrible manners, you know."

"I have excellent manners for people who deserve them."

The pirate stretched his legs out even further, crossing his arms behind his head and lounging looser in the seat. "I was wondering earlier why a House scion was out by himself, but I've definitely found the answer by now. Even bodyguards can't stand to be around you, Jensen."

Jensen sat up as straight as possible. "Not that it's any of your business, pirate, but I was engaged in a scientific expedition."

"Alone."

"That is how I prefer it." He glanced pointedly back and forth between the pirate and the hatch to outside. The pirate didn't move. "Soon enough I shan't be allowed that anymore. But I should have been safe to enjoy some of my last moments of freedom except that certain people have unreasonably rejected all tenets of civilized behavior despite apparently being citizens of the Empire."

"Citizens? It's not like you allow protectorates any votes or rights. That's how civilized your Empire is." The pirate wasn't lounging anymore, rather bristling, his voice contemptuous and insulting.

"All new member worlds must be protectorates at first so they can learn the Charter and be integrated into society," Jensen responded calmly. He would not respond with his own uncouth. "You'll be full citizens eventually with seats in the Council."

"I don't want to be one of your citizens. I want my world to be free again. That's what I'm fighting for."

"Well, your world chose to join the Empire. Just because you personally would remain a barbarian-"

The pirate laughed with a mocking growl. "Some choice. You and the Union blasted us into ruins during your war, so when the pox hit we had no resources to handle it. But would you give us medicine in return for the damage you did? Of course not. We had to buy it from you, and when we couldn't afford the payments, since you'd broken everything, you annexed us because you said we owed you. Now we're a protectorate, protected from exploitation by anyone but you. And we have to follow your Charter and obey all your laws and pay your taxes and we don't have a say in anything. That's what seems barbaric to me."

"But that's not how it happened." Jensen didn't really study history and had only been a child during the war, didn't understand all the news then, but he knew how it had occurred. "The Union tried to conquer and bomb you and we helped liberate you and then aided you when the pox struck. That was why your world joined the Empire. The rest of your people were smart enough to realize that it was the best option." That was always how it went.

"Save your propaganda for someone else. I was there. My father was killed by an Empire blast," the pirate ground out.

"But- That must have been an accident." The Empire had only attacked Union targets.

"It was hardly an accident. You destroyed all our energy production facilities."

"I-" Jensen stopped and looked away from the pirate toward the open hatch. Could there possibly be some truth to what the pirate was saying? But it was so unbelievable. The Empire didn't force worlds to join. They didn't need to. People wanted to join because the Empire was a civilizing beacon of justice and prosperity, far preferable to the primitive conditions of the unaffiliated worlds or the despotism of the Union. If he were to think otherwise, Jensen might as well start believing that gravity repelled objects and that stars sucked in radiation.

"I suppose your whole Council is full of ignorant liars like you, and that explains it all."

"I am not a liar. Nor ignorant. And I don't even want a Council seat," Jensen hissed. "It's boring, pointless political arguments like-"

"Life or death power over billions is boring and pointless?" The pirate stood and walked toward Jensen and Jensen rose up as well to meet him. But the pirate kept moving forward and Jensen took a step away that left his back pressed up against the hull of the ship. The pirate leaned in, his face too close to Jensen's, his eyes dark with anger.

Jensen felt the same anger running through him, pulsing in every nerve as he clenched his fists and stared the pirate down. How dare he presume like this. The air between them felt like it was sparking with fury, swirling over Jensen's skin from the pirate's proximity.

The pirate raised up a hand and pressed it heavily against Jensen's throat, sending a shiver through Jensen's whole body. "Maybe I should just-" Jensen shoved hard at the pirate's chest but he didn't move away. Jensen was too angry to even be afraid. After a moment the man finally stepped back. "No. You're worthless." He turned and disappeared outside. Jensen collapsed back against the hull, panting.

Had he really been in danger? Was the pirate actually a madman, or was there some truth in what he said?

If the pirate's story was true then his actions made a lot more sense, and so did many of his earlier statements. Even if his story wasn't true, he clearly believed it. Knowing the shape of his delusions at least gave Jensen information to formulate better predictions for his actions.

When Jensen returned to his House he would research the subject and see if there was any evidence to support the pirate's claims. If there were, though Jensen couldn't believe there would be, then the pirate's attitude was understandable. There was no justice in the story he told.

There ought to be justice. Even if one situation had somehow been mishandled, that didn't change the general principles the Empire stood for, or the hope it brought to so many in the galaxy who would otherwise be worse off.

Jensen's attention was caught by the two fruits still sitting on the pilot's instrument panel. He wandered over, seated himself, and picked one up. From now on, he would change his tactics with the pirate. He would ignore the man's horrible habits and rude manners as much as possible and not complain about them. He might even try to see if the pirate was smart enough to assist him in some of his work. And he would be meticulously polite to the pirate and show him the true nature of civilized behavior.

With that solved to his satisfaction Jensen bit into the fruit and quickly finished both of them off. If he stoically resolved to ignore their origins he could stand to enjoy them a little. Afterwards he drank more water, and that was still as wonderful as it had been earlier. He did not, however, finish off all of what was clean. He filled the cup with it and went outside, putting on the boots but not the jacket.

The pirate was sitting there by his little fire, his back to the ship, staring off into the distance. He stiffened as Jensen approached but didn't turn to look at him.

"I brought you this," Jensen said, crouching down beside the pirate and holding the cup out to him.

The pirate turned cold eyes on him. "Something that I supplied for you in the first place."

Jensen drew on all his pride to do what he must do. "And thank you for that. For all the things you've supplied to me." He couldn't quite look at the pirate as he said it, though, focusing on a strand of the man's hair that had come loose and was curling about his ear.

For a long moment the pirate said nothing and neither of them moved. Then he took the cup from Jensen. "You're welcome," he said, and drained it in one long swallow. Jensen snatched the cup back from him when he was done before he could set it on the ground.

"I shall look into your claims when I get back to my House," Jensen continued. "If there have been mistakes made then the Empire will see to it that justice is restored. Worlds cannot be forced to join."

"I'm beginning to think," the pirate said slowly, "that you just don't understand how your own Empire works. That's their standard practice."

Jensen narrowed his eyes and glared at the pirate, then remembered that he was trying to stay polite. He shook his head. "No. It can't be. I would never vote for such a thing, and I know my mothers and siblings wouldn't either."

The pirate shrugged. "That's as may be. Doesn't change what happens."

"But if that happens then it must change. I will look into it," Jensen repeated. He was trying to placate the pirate, but he was also telling the truth. He would indeed research this strange claim.

The pirate cocked his head to the side, examining Jensen closely. Now Jensen did stare back. He noticed that the pirate's skin had darkened more, the color evening out and not leaving those pale rings around his eyes. But he hadn't turned red the way Jensen had. Maybe it didn't hurt him the same. There were also rough, short hairs growing in around his mouth and along his chin and throat. If he wasn't repressing the hairs there, how had there been none when Jensen first saw him? What did he do to keep them away?

"And please accept my condolences for your loss," Jensen continued. "I- My father and second mother died in the war as well, leaving me with only two parents. I can imagine how you feel."

"Or not. I only have one parent."

"I am trying," Jensen said, as calmly as possible, "to be nice to you. Don't make it harder than it has to be."

The pirate laughed at that, which was proof that Jensen still didn't have a theory that explained him well at all, because he hadn't predicted that response. He had mentioned his parents' deaths. That was hardly something that should lead to laughter.

"I think you have that backward," the pirate said.

"I do not."

"Did you know that you have freckles?" The pirate reached out and ran a fingertip across Jensen's cheek. Jensen twitched away. The pirate's skin was rough and hard, a contrast to the light touch, which, gentle as it was, pressed into the damage from the sun and made Jensen's face feel hot and pained.

"What?" Jensen asked.

"You look more like a real person, all sunburned and freckled."

Jensen flushed more. The pirate must mean the dark spots on him. Jensen had always hated the imperfections in his skin color, but they had been minor, just a slight difference in shading, easy enough to hide. Now they were standing out clearly visible all over him, pulled to the surface by the sun.

"But you don't like that. You don't like any of this." The pirate waved a hand to indicate the whole planet. "You think it's all wrong. You'd rather stay locked away in your space station where you can pretend everything's perfect. Where you can believe everyone wants to join you because why would we want to stay down here in the dirt?"

"Why do you?" Jensen snapped.

"Because my world is beautiful!" the pirate exclaimed. "And look at you, you hardly feel anything. You mention your parents dying to try to be polite to me, as if it means nothing to you. As if-"

"How dare you." Jensen cut him off. "How dare you even claim to know how I feel."

"Why not? You claimed to know how I felt. But you didn't have to take shelter from the raids. You didn't have to live in fear."

"Is that why you enjoy making me your prisoner?"

"But I thought I was under arrest by you. Because of course you're always in control and always untouchable and pristine."

"Well, I ended up here," Jensen said, angry yet closer to being overwhelmed than he had been since the time before when he had first stepped outside. He hadn't been in control or untouched since the pirate's ship had appeared, no matter what he claimed, and certainly not pristine. For example, here he was arguing with the pirate again when he had just resolved to be scrupulously polite. But the pirate made it impossible to do otherwise. "And that doesn't mean- I tell you about the worst thing that's ever happened to me, barring this current situation, and you say I have no feelings?"

"Precisely because nothing bad ever happens to you."

"That doesn't give you the right-"

"No, that doesn't give you the right."

"I never did anything to you."

"Apparently you just stood by and ignored it all. Because you can do that, you can avoid anything you don't like, hide away from the world while still getting to play with whatever you want."

Jensen glared, even more furious. "I said I would help you, but your continued ungratefulness makes that seem foolish."

The pirate widened his eyes in faked surprise. "Oh, was that an offer of help? It sounded like you didn't believe a word I said, my lord. Besides, we hardly need your help."

"What would you prefer then, if your story is true? To get justice, or to continue your fruitless piratical attempts until you're arrested?"

"You can just stay out of it," the pirate emphasized, crossing his arms.

"Fine." Jensen turned away. He didn't need this. He would still do what he had to do to ease his own curiosity and conscience, but he didn't care at all about what the pirate thought of it. The pirate was just a single very annoying person. That wasn't what mattered. It was the principle of the thing in general that was important.

"Fine," the pirate echoed.

Jensen stood up and went back inside to have another drink of water. He first very carefully wiped off the cup and then rinsed it, pouring that water back in to be cleansed again before filling it to drink from once more. The pirate had been touching it after all.

He really ought to keep working, but he was getting very tired of doing so. It was the only thing to do, other than sit outside and talk to the pirate. Jensen was bored, and he wasn't used to being bored. He'd always been able to find some way to entertain himself. But he'd never had options that were this limited before, or something that he felt he had to do, needed to do, even when he didn't want to.

But even the threat of being stuck here forever and dying here couldn't make Jensen really want to work when he was bored with it. Needing to do it just made him more bored.

What he actually wanted to do, to his own surprise, was see if there was anything left here of the Old Republic other than some fruiting plants. He hadn't noticed anything when he was coming in from space, but he hadn't been looking for it, either, so he might have missed something. He could scan for it now, though.

Nothing showed up though, even at the greatest lengths of the scanners. There was no evidence of any structures or machines. Nothing showed that anyone had ever lived here, even though someone had left plants and possibly animals or other life here. There were planets like that, though. Ones that had been seeded for various reasons and then never inhabited. A lot of that information had been lost in the fall of the Old Republic.

That was too bad, because if there had been something to find, that would have been interesting. And possibly helpful for getting out of here.

Jensen peeked outside again to see what the pirate was doing now. The fire had been put out, dirt piled over it, and the man was walking away toward the trees. Jensen decided to follow him. The pirate glanced back over his shoulder at one point and saw Jensen behind him but didn't slow, and Jensen hurried a little faster to catch up with the man just after he had stepped under the first trees. The pirate was looking up, scanning the tops of the trees as they went along.

Finally he stopped and pointed up, though Jensen couldn't figure out what exactly about the tree he was pointing to. Then the pirate started to scramble up it, holding on to the limbs and scrabbling against the trunk. As the pirate got higher there came a squawking noise and an animal launched itself away from the tree with a rapid flutter of wings to disappear in the distance, still squawking. Jensen moved around the side of the tree as the pirate circled it, continuing to watch the man's ascent in amazement.

Now he could see where the pirate was aiming: the tangle of leaves and sticks balanced atop one tree-limb that the animal had flown from.

The pirate crept out further along that limb, holding on to the one above it. Suddenly there was a snap and a crash and before Jensen could move out of the way, the tree-limb, the pirate, and the tangle with eggs inside it came down atop him.

There was pain all through his body, sore from being smashed into and scratched all over, and a sharper, stronger pain on his right thigh, where when he looked down Jensen could see blood flowing from a deeper cut. There was egg goo on him, too. The pirate rolled away, also bleeding from a scratch on his upper arm. He grabbed at the fallen limb and tugged it as Jensen shoved it off him.

Jensen stood up as quickly as possible to get off the ground and get his wounds away from the dirt. The motion and the weight on his leg made it hurt even more and he whimpered, trying to wipe the egg goo off himself and just getting it all over his hands as well. He was shaking from the suddenness of the event.

"Sorry, sorry," the pirate said. "Here, let me-"

Jensen ducked away from him. "Stay back, you've done enough already." All he wanted right now was to get back inside his ship. He started walking that way and stumbled, his leg unable to hold him up from the pain the steps caused. Jensen had never been injured before. Nothing had ever hurt like this. He didn't like it at all. His head was starting to feel fuzzy. The pirate came up on Jensen's left side, wrapping the hand of his uninjured arm around Jensen's elbow. Jensen tried to pull away again but almost fell over. So he let the pirate touch him and keep him steady as he walked.

"Okay, once we're inside I'll look at that," the pirate said.

"What are you going to do?" Jensen asked in annoyance. "Someone recently stole all my medical supplies." Maybe he was just going to bleed to death here on this planet now, killed by the pirate's clumsiness and desire to eat disgusting things.

The pirate shook his head and rolled his eyes. "It's not that bad. You'll be fine anyway."

They finally, after the longest trek of Jensen's life, reached the runabout and Jensen dropped down into the pilot's seat with relief, not caring that he was dripping blood all over it, and pulled off the boots. His head felt light, his leg was still causing him horrible pain, and most other parts of his body were filled with lesser pain, but at least he was inside where he felt safer and cleaner.

He watched through the pain haze as the pirate took off his shirt and poured a little bit of water over the cut on his arm, letting the water and blood run back into the recycler. Then the pirate took one of the sharp metal pieces Jensen had been utilizing for engineering and ripped the shirt into strips, wrapping one tightly around his cut. He turned back to Jensen and Jensen struggled the few steps to get there. He stood over the recycler and lifted aside the hem of his tunic while the pirate poured thankfully clean water over Jensen's cut.

That minor cleanliness would be entirely undone, though, if the pirate put a piece of his shirt over the wound as he seemed about to do. When Jensen lifted a hand to stay him the pirate raised an eyebrow.

"Do you have any suggestions other than this or just bleeding everywhere?"

Jensen supposed he didn't, so he let the pirate hand him a piece of shirt to wipe the egg goo off him while the man wrapped another piece tightly around Jensen's thigh. Jensen tried not to think how dirty the cloth must be by now.

It was actually shockingly easy to avoid that thought, and even to ignore the pain now, because Jensen was extremely distracted by the feel of the pirate's hands on him. The pirate's hands were sure and firm and his rough skin kept brushing against Jensen's. Jensen was suddenly aware of the proximity of the pirate's whole body, the warmth of him, the sound of his breathing. The pirate was bent over and Jensen was staring down at the stretch of his bare back.

The pirate tied the cloth shut and glanced up at Jensen. His fingers were still wrapped around the top of Jensen's thigh and Jensen felt his breath catch in his throat, his heart pound. The pirate gave a knowing smirk that only infuriated Jensen more.

He stood up now, his hands dragging Jensen's leg up around his waist, but his whole body pressed so close to Jensen's that Jensen didn't, couldn't stumble, even when his leg banged into the holster of the pirate's disruptor. Jensen tilted his face up to protest and then the pirate was kissing him, or he was kissing the pirate, he couldn't even tell.

It was unlike any kiss Jensen had ever experienced before. Not just because of the unpleasant taste of both their unwashed mouths, but because of everything that drove it. All Jensen's previous sexual encounters had been soft, lazy games, generally played in situations such as decadent parties designed to stimulate all the senses.

This kiss was harsh, furious, all sharp and biting.

Jensen didn't like the pirate at all. He wasn't even attracted to him. But somehow, his anger and annoyance and worry and hatred were mixing with the physical pain in his body and creating something that drove him on even more than desire or lust would have.

The pirate pulled back, his eyes dark and glittering, and opened his mouth to say something. Jensen didn't want to hear it, so he buried his hands in the pirate's hair and yanked him back in, using his tongue to keep any words from coming out.

Jensen was hard already, and he could feel that the pirate was, too.

The pirate knelt down, slipping Jensen's injured leg up over his shoulder, nuzzling at Jensen's other thigh and pulling aside the loincloth covering him under his tunic. Jensen gripped his left hand hard on the pirate's shoulder, nails digging into the skin and muscle, and slid the other along the hull to raise it above his head.

Up there the gravity quadrants were still unaligned from the work Jensen had been doing earlier. Higher on the hull the gravity pointed perpendicularly, toward the outside of the ship, so that what was the wall down here became the deck up there. Jensen let go of the pirate and grasped a strut with both hands, pulling himself up and along until his head and shoulders, then most of his upper body, felt like he was lying on the deck, while only his legs were dangling down a wall. The pirate rose up with him, hands under Jensen's buttocks and both of Jensen's legs over his shoulders now, until he was standing up, supporting Jensen.

Jensen gasped when the pirate swallowed him down deep.

It felt incredibly good. It was hard and fast, with the pirate licking and tightening his cheeks. The strange feel of the pirate's roughened hands on the delicate skin of his thighs, the harshness of the short hair around his mouth, just added to that. He kept knocking into the cut on Jensen's thigh and the sharp bursts of pain didn't seem to hurt anymore in this situation but only made Jensen shudder and moan more.

After a few moments Jensen sat up, leaning toward the pirate's head. He started to fall forward slowly as he slid between gravity quadrants, and the pirate began to lean backwards. The speed increased as Jensen retuned to the other section of gravity entirely, both of them crashing to the deck, Jensen on top of the pirate. This fall was more exciting than the other one had been. This time the slam of hitting the ground rushed through Jensen with a wave of pleasure.

The pirate quickly returned to sucking him and Jensen thrust down into his mouth. He could feel the motion of the man's arm against his leg now, tell he was jerking himself off, but frankly Jensen didn't care either way about that.

Despite that, only a moment later the pirate tensed underneath Jensen, hips pushing up sharply, mouth going slack as he came. He was shaking under Jensen's thighs, gasping as Jensen just kept thrusting regardless.

When Jensen came soon after his orgasm was explosive, an overwhelming jolt though his nerves and mind, as great as all the impacts of all the physical crashes he'd been through these past few cycles, smashing through him all at once. He slid off to the side, collapsing to the deck and adjusting his clothes back into place, body suddenly sore again as the pleasure slowly drained away.

The pirate licked his lips, glancing over at Jensen with some surprise, as if he didn't believe it ought to be over, didn't understand why Jensen had stopped. He reached out again and Jensen batted his hand away in annoyance, blinking confusedly at him through the haze in his brain.

That was when he saw the unfamiliar sticky white mess on the man's stomach and hand and realized what it must actually be.

Jensen had taken his contraceptive repressors, of course; everyone unmarried did so. But he should have guessed that a barbarian wouldn't have even the slightest sense of propriety in this area, either.

He shuddered and pulled away even more and the pirate drew his hand back and looked off to the side. The reality of what he had just done overwhelmed Jensen in a cold rush. That had been utterly foolish and inappropriate, and he couldn't even explain it to himself. He would certainly never be able to explain it to anyone else. Not that he would ever admit to it or tell anyone about it. That is if he ever got a chance to tell anyone about anything ever again.

Jensen lay on the deck a few moments more, not moving or speaking. He didn't know what to do now. He wanted to be alone; he wanted to tell the pirate how obnoxious he still found the man; he didn't want to say anything that might let the pirate think this had affected Jensen at all.

The pirate was quiet too and as the silence dragged on Jensen eventually decided he had to say something, do something, anything. Just as he started to sit up the pirate looked over.

The pox marks on his face shifted and crumpled with his grin, his crooked teeth sharp and feral, his eyes flashing with mocking mirth. "So I finally discovered something you're good for."

Jensen glowered. "That wasn't good."

The pirate leaned in closer and Jensen slid back again. "I think it was. I enjoyed it. And you clearly enjoyed it, too." The man's pants were still open and unfastened, his mess still covering his exposed crotch. Jensen glanced away, at the open hatch, feeling himself blush.

His distraction gave the pirate the chance to get even closer to him, though. He wrapped his fingers around Jensen's chin and pulled Jensen's head around, making him meet the pirate's eyes. Then he raised his other hand, licking his own sexual excretions off it.

"I know you look down on me," he continued, tongue darting out to catch the last speck of white from the corner of his lips. "But that was exactly what made it hot for you, wasn't it? The fact that you weren't supposed to do it. The twisted way it made you feel. You liked it all dirty and rough."

Jensen wanted to pull away but he couldn't move. It was the sad and shameful truth. "You have every single bit of that wrong," he lied, trying to sound as haughty as he could.

"Well, don't worry, Jensen. Now that we know, we can always do it again." The pirate smirked at him and raised an eyebrow in challenge. Jensen grabbed the man's wrist and finally pulled his head out of the pirate's grip. But he didn't, still couldn't, move away any further. The pirate leaned in closer and pushed Jensen down, settling on top of him.

Jensen felt his hips pulsing up automatically and the pirate's grin widened. Jensen's heart was racing and he was getting turned on again already as the pirate bent down and fastened his mouth on Jensen's neck, sucking sharply, the rough hairs around his mouth scratching Jensen's skin.

"I abhor you," Jensen said, trying not to whimper from the pleasure. He was still flushed with his anger and humiliation. It was like his body was running away on its own, leaving all his better judgment and standards behind.

The pirate bit down even harder and Jensen arched up into him. "Probably not half as much as I hate you," he whispered against Jensen's throat, then bit down again. Jensen scraped his nails hard down the pirate's bare back and let his legs drop open, the pirate's hips falling snugly into his.

Reaching down, the pirate loosened Jensen's loincloth between his legs and pushed his tunic up around his waist, then shoved his own pants down his thighs. He braced his hands by Jensen's head and rolled his hips down, his erection pressing into Jensen's, the cooling goop of his earlier orgasm rubbing everywhere. It was utterly disgusting and Jensen pushed up to meet it, closing his eyes and throwing his legs around the pirate's waist, each thrust knocking against the cut on his thigh.

Jensen slid a hand down between them, wrapping his fingers around both their erections and pulling hard. The pirate gasped and stuttered into his ear. "Then what?" Jensen asked, his voice shaking. "Do you just enjoy tormenting me?" Jensen gripped the pirate's upper arm with his other hand and dug into the wound there through the makeshift bandage.

The pirate thrust his hips down harder and bit Jensen's earlobe, gnawing and sucking. "I want to see you coming apart, laid low, just totally..." he whispered and trailed off.

"Defeated?" Jensen supplied breathlessly.

The pirate raised himself up, threading his fingers through Jensen's hair and pulling Jensen's head back hard. Jensen met his gaze. The pirate's eyes were narrowed and dark. He dug his teeth into his lower lip as he shook his head. Then he attacked Jensen's mouth, biting at Jensen's lips instead. Jensen crept his tongue into the pirate's mouth and the pirate sucked on it roughly before he pulled back. "Human," he said, rocking his hips down as Jensen continued tugging harshly. "Not so stuck up and self-righteously perfect."

Jensen's anger flared even higher. How dare this ruffian call him such things as that. "You're the one who's overly self-righteous, blast you," he growled. The pirate laughed.

"There's your dirty mouth."

Jensen twisted his fingers tighter around the pirate's erection and bit down himself now, hard on the pirate's shoulder. The pirate shuddered and groaned against him and came with a hot rush over Jensen's hand. Jensen felt vindicated for a moment and then he had to grimace as the substance dripped down onto his stomach.

But he rocked into it as the pirate reached down as well, rubbing his excretions along Jensen's erection, all wet and warm. To Jensen's horror that was what drove him over the edge of another shockingly intense orgasm.

He lay there panting and shaking, little aftershocks of pleasure trembling through his body, as the pirate stood up. The man picked up the last rag of his ripped-apart shirt and wiped himself off with it, dropping it on the deck near Jensen as he tucked himself away and fastened up his pants and then straightened up his hair.

"You would think there's nothing shameful in what I've done just now," the pirate said, his voice tight and raw. "I scored with a scion of a noble House. But..." He stopped and shook his head quickly. "Well, I'll just leave you here to think about what you've done." Then he disappeared outside.

Jensen waited, breathing slowly and deeply, trying to make the combination of pleasure, fury, and disgust flow away. When he finally stopped shaking he wiped himself off, feeling another rush of shame to need to use the pirate's dirty cloth again to do so. Then he put his clothes in order and hauled himself up into the pilot's seat.

He couldn't believe that he had just had sex with that horrible barbarian pirate. And not just once; no, he had even done it again a second time immediately afterward. Each time he thought he couldn't fall any further into unspeakable behavior he found some new way to do so.

The only thing he could do to lift himself up, to make some kind of penance for his actions and distract himself from thinking about them, was to continue his work on the ship.

Luckily that was enough to make Jensen's mind blank for hours as he worked. First he checked the oxygen membrane and found it growing back satisfactorily. It was over half repaired and in another few cycles would be completely restored to full health. Even if he were to take off into space now he would have enough oxygen, because it could support him as it grew from this point on, and working to supply him wouldn't hinder its progress.

Next he continued his efforts on the shields. They still needed some more work before he would actually be able to trust in them to hold together while leaving the atmosphere and gravity well of the planet. Even then they wouldn't be acceptable for hyperspace, but with the hyper drive dead, that was a moot point.

Unfortunately all too soon he was actually done with the shields. Now there was nothing to occupy and distract him. Well, no, there was one thing. He could put the pieces back in the solid matter recycler, though he would have to do some jury-rigging to get around the missing wires he had left in the gravity generator.

So Jensen replaced all the bits of metal that he had taken out of that recycler, hoping that he hadn't bent them out of shape or made them unusable. To test the machine he dumped the dirty pieces of cloth with his and the pirate's biological waste all over them inside.

The recycler worked.

And watching that piece of cloth disappear and become clean basic particles made Jensen feel so much more calm and content. Maybe his memory would do the same; maybe the experience itself would do the same.

Now that he was out of work, though, his hunger was reasserting itself.

Jensen was going to have to go outside again and face the pirate.

He was not going to repeat his mistake. He was not even going to acknowledge that anything had occurred. The pirate would surely want to rub it in Jensen's face but Jensen would show nothing. From now on, his behavior must be beyond reproach, no matter what the pirate did.

Jensen put on the unfortunate but necessary boots though he rejected the jacket again. He did not need the pirate to think him too beholden or weak. He took a long drink of water and filled the cup with more as another show of politeness.

Then he squared his shoulders, schooled his face into stillness, and exited the runabout.

The pirate was nowhere to be seen.

Jensen felt a rush of relief at his absence and also a sense of betrayal. The pirate was supposed to be there so that he could provide Jensen with food. If he was missing, where was he? How far had he gone? When would he return? Or would he return at all? There wasn't anywhere to go to on this planet, but the pirate might be perfectly fine just being nowhere. Maybe he had left Jensen entirely alone.

The solitude Jensen had thought he desired did not seem quite so appealing now.

He returned to the runabout, poured the water back into the recycler, and went to the instrument panel to scan for the pirate's life signs.

The pirate was actually not that far away, inside the trees down by the open water.

So Jensen began walking in the pirate's direction.

When he arrived he saw that the pirate had removed his clothing and was crouched in the shallow water, splashing it over himself. Jensen scowled. The pirate was clearly washing himself, though Jensen didn't believe that such dirty water would be effective to the purpose. And while he might indeed logically want to cleanse himself of his own mess the implication almost seemed to be that he believed contact with Jensen required him to wash. Jensen was insulted. He also desperately wished that he had access to adequate facilities so he could cleanse himself fully of his contact with the pirate, and the rest of this planet for that matter.

Unfortunately the pirate's clothes and disruptor were on the far side of the water, behind him and away from Jensen, so Jensen had no hope of getting to them and thus having an upper hand over the pirate.

The pirate looked up as Jensen approached. "Back for more?" he asked coldly.

Jensen couldn't stop himself from blushing again but resolved not to otherwise respond to that statement. He gazed at a tree behind the pirate rather than look at the man's nakedness. "I came looking for food," he said.

The pirate laughed harshly. "I suppose that even the most beautiful automaton needs to be refueled, though you must find such base needs to be very frustrating. Especially so when you find yourself relying on one such as me to fulfill them."

Jensen narrowed his eyes, imagining that the tree he was looking at might fall on the pirate and crush him. The tree remained standing, unaffected. It didn't appear to have any fruit, either, so it was not helping him in any fashion. "I will leave you to the privacy of your ablutions," he responded. He would stick to his resolution to not let the pirate disturb him. He turned and walked away, back toward the runabout.

He was not helpless. He could find his own food.

Now that the solid matter recycler was fixed, Jensen could just use it to synthesize basic nutrients from any material. But now he wanted to prove a point here. He wanted to show that he could succeed at surviving on this planet under a barbarian's standards.

So instead he used the ship's sensors to scan the surrounding area for edible plants. He found a number of them. There were also lots of small animals in the vicinity and Jensen was glad that none of them had turned out to be dangerous so far.

There was a stand of trees nearby that grew a type of nut Jensen really liked. Fairly close to that was a set of bushes that grew another good fruit. Jensen carefully noted the coordinates, the angle and distance from the runabout. Then he set off into the trees by himself.

It was mostly quiet, but he still didn't like the sound of the trees moving with the air. The occasional small sounds from animals worried him but none of them seemed to pose a threat or even make themselves visible. Clearly they were also nervous about him.

At one point Jensen had to push his way through a clump of scratchy plants that grew very close together, and he was glad that he had worn the jacket this time, because it protected his arms.

Finally he reached the place where the nut trees were. That was when he encountered a problem. There was no way he was even going to try to get up a tree like the pirate had. And the nuts all seemed to be very high up in the trees. Then Jensen examined the ones that had fallen from the trees onto the ground. They didn't look at all like what he was expecting. They were much larger and harder and had spikes all over them. If these were the nuts he was used to, then they must be contained inside that shell somewhere. And Jensen had no way to break through the shell out here. He tried stomping on one with the boots but that didn't do it. They were very hard indeed. Not that he would want to eat a nut he had stepped on, anyway.

If he could get them back to the ship he could probably open them there. They were very sharp, but he could fit a few inside the jacket pockets. He picked out a couple that seemed to be in good condition. They had been sitting on the ground, indeed, but he would pretend that the shells were keeping the nuts inside clean.

Then he went off to the side to find the fruit bushes. All the trees were very alike, so it took him a moment to figure out which direction he had originally come from before he moved around while looking at the nuts.

He found the bushes quickly, though. These fruits were not quite ripe, but Jensen was so hungry that he ate a few anyway. Then he took a few more back with him to have for later. And to show the pirate that he could do it.

Instead of going back via the nut trees, Jensen calculated the direction he would have to go to get back to the runabout. He had the image of the scans clearly in his mind, so it wasn't very difficult.

The way back seemed somehow longer than the way in, and since he was traveling a slightly different path and hadn't passed anything he recognized from the way in, he was beginning to worry that he had miscalculated, when he finally came out into the open area where his ship was.

Jensen felt very proud of himself for navigating the planet alone and acquiring his own food from deep inside the difficult growth of plants. It was quite an accomplishment. One he would prefer never to have been driven to, but still, something that would be very impressive if, or rather when, he got back to his House and could tell everyone of the dangers he had faced. Leaving out the embarrassing parts, of course.

When he got back the pirate was sitting in the hatch of the ship with it open as far as it would go. He was drinking water out of Jensen's cup and kicking his heels against the hull.

"I wasn't expecting you to go off anywhere," the pirate commented. "You didn't get eaten by some scary grass or anything?"

Jensen tried to ignore his offensive attitude. "I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself. And the most dangerous creature on this planet is you, to judge by my current wounds."

"It's just a little scratch." The pirate took another sip, glancing up at Jensen through his eyelashes over the edge of the cup.

Deciding to be magnanimous, Jensen handed him a piece of fruit.

The pirate examined it closely, as if he didn't believe that Jensen knew enough to pick something safe, and then took a bite. "Maybe you wouldn't just starve without servants like a worthless parasite," he said while chewing.

Jensen quashed his urge to respond to that, and instead just went inside, took off the jacket and boots, took the nuts out carefully, and set them down on the instrument panel. He was trying to think what he could use to cut or smash them open when the pirate came up behind him, picked one up, and jimmied the edge of his wrist communicator into a particular spot on the shell. The whole thing cracked open into two even pieces and the smaller nut Jensen was used to lay revealed there. Jensen picked it up and popped it in his mouth. It was good.

"And now you're back to having someone else do all the work," the pirate said.

"You could show me how," Jensen suggested. He didn't want the pirate to be able to say something such as that legitimately. Nor did he want a claim like that to have any truth to it in general.

The pirate gave Jensen a long look and then nodded. "This spot right here." He pointed to a tiny dot just barely visible in the tip of the shell where it was slightly uneven. The nuts were not perfect spheres. "You can even do it with a fingernail if they're ripe enough, but these are maybe just a little green for that."

Jensen got out one of his screwdriver and picked up a nut, wary of the spikes on it. He pressed the tip of the tool against the spot and the shell fell apart easily. He was pleased. He could do this. Contrary to what the pirate claimed, Jensen was very competent at a number of things, and he took pride in them. He didn't want to be useless or helpless. Though possibly the pleasure he was feeling at this accomplishment was greater than the proportion of it really warranted.

This second nut tasted much better than the first, though.

Jensen popped all the rest of them open and again generously gave a few to the pirate. Not that the pirate thanked him, despite all his talk of Jensen's ungratefulness. But Jensen wasn't going to let the pirate get to him, so he generously decided not to point that out.

When he was done eating Jensen found himself at loose ends again. He was suddenly acutely aware of the silence lying heavy between him and the pirate, the proximity of the man leaning against the other end of the instrument panel, the bare expanse of his chest and his long fingers idly twisting at the waistband of his pants, as if he didn't even realize he was doing it.

Jensen didn't want to risk saying anything to the pirate, but he also didn't want to risk letting the silence stretch on, not when it felt as if the air was getting thicker with each breath. He glanced around the familiar confines of the runabout, automatically inventorying every part in it, and he could feel the pirate's gaze on him now, like fingers against the back of his neck, making his shoulders rise.

"Maybe..." the pirate said, just the one word and then his voice drifted off. Jensen clamped his teeth shut to keep from asking for more, to keep from snapping at the pirate to shut up.

Just then the alarm that Jensen had rigged on the sensors sounded, indicating that a ship had come out of hyperspace within the system. Both Jensen and the pirate startled and jerked around. Jensen dropped down into the pilot's seat, heart pounding as he checked the instrument panel to see what ship it was.

It was a battle cruiser of his House.

The rush of relief caused him to wobble forward, dropping his hands to the panel dash to support himself. He was rescued, no longer at all captive. He would be going home in a few moments. He wasn't stuck on this planet anymore. He wasn't going to waste away to death here. He no longer had to worry about his responses to the pirate.

He was safe and all was right again. Jensen could put this whole thing behind him.

He was about to open a message in response to the hailing frequencies that were now reaching him when the pirate leaned forward into his vision. His face was blank as he glanced from Jensen to the readout on the instrument panel and back again.

"I guess that's that, then." The pirate loosened his disruptor from its holster and Jensen tensed in worry for a second before the pirate reached over and set it in Jensen's lap.

Jensen paused with his hand next to the transmit command. He didn't realize what he was about to say until he was already saying it. "Jared." Jensen watched the pirate's eyebrows rise in matching surprise. "If you come aboard I'll tell them to send you home. Whatever story I give, no one will question it."

The pirate's expression returned to neutral but his eyes were a little brighter and clearer. "Can't. There's an open warrant out for me."

Jensen felt a twinge of conscience knowing that he was releasing a wanted criminal, but in the current situation he suddenly couldn't do otherwise. "Then if I leave you here, they won't investigate the planet once I'm off it. You can tell me where to send a message for you."

The pirate grinned at him. "Or you could come back here. If you return shortly I'll take you to my world and no one will accost you."

Jensen knew he didn't have any time to decide. The request for a response was still pouring across the screen and the ship was coming closer to the planet. He nodded.

The pirate leaned down close and pressed his rough cheek against Jensen's. "I want to whisper more seditious ideas into your perfectly curved ear until you bend to all of my wicked whims." Jensen shivered from the soft warmth of his breath.

Before he could respond, the pirate snatched up his disruptor, jacket, and boots, stepped out of the ship, and walked away without looking back. Jensen watched until he had disappeared into the trees and then shut the hatch. He opened the communications channel and prepared for lift-off. He was going home.

For a little while.


End file.
